The results of the 2024 Indian general election, the biggest in the world, were finally revealed on June 4. Incumbent Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his party, Bharatiya Janata Party, were able to retain power as the former matched a record for staying in power for a third-straight term, something only ever done by Jawaharlal Nehru back in the days when India was still finding her feet as an independent nation.
Readers must note that the election was held across seven phases and began on April 19, thus lasting around one and a half months. As one of the largest — if not the biggest — political events globally, and one of the world's most important elections in years, the 2024 Indian general election received quite a lot of hype, both nationally and internationally.
This included online circles, with social media and YouTube especially abuzz with news, updates, primers, and opinions on who would end up forming the 18th Lok Sabha in the world's most populous country. The red platform enjoys a massive user base in South Asia, including the Indian subcontinent. As a result, its rankings were awash with channels from the world's largest democracy when looking at the most watched and the most popular streams over the ten days, i.e., May 31 to June 9.
Getting back to the election results for a moment, while victory meant celebrations for the former Gujarat Chief Minister and his followers, the BJP fell well short of what it had predicted before elections began. Various party cadre, including the PM himself, had predicted that they would retain power by once again sweeping a majority of the 543 available seats. However, come results day, BJP could only muster 240 seats, much below the majority mark.
Luckily, its allies performed well enough to ensure that the coalition National Democratic Alliance government remained in power after totaling 293 seats to win the election. While the various portfolios and final ministerial positions are still to be decided by the NDA, there have been a lot of moving parts.
Among the most watched streams on popular streaming platforms over the past ten days, India tallied exactly half, showing just how much coverage the event got across the country. If we remove the restriction of one top broadcast per channel for this period, some news organizations would have multiple entries on this table.
Atop the list is perhaps India's number one TV news network, Aaj Tak, which runs channels in multiple languages across the country. Part of the Living Media group, the New Delhi-based media conglomerate, its main Hindi handle on YouTube has over 65.20M subscribers, making it one of its 30 most followed accounts.
Even when looking at a top ten standings by peak concurrent viewers, there are three in the top ten and four in the top 15. Aaj Talk is the leader here as well, standing atop the podium as the only name to cross 800K PV between May 31 and June 9.
What is interesting is that these Indian channels have reached high peak online spectators on the days after the election results came out. The main reason is that there is still suspense across the country and the world as to how the coalition government will divide the various portfolios and which politicians will head where.
One of the most popular channels across the period in question was that of Narendra Modi, who was sworn in as the Prime Minister for the third term on June 9. There was some conjecture beforehand as to whether he would be the one to be chosen as the new government's leader, however contrived that was, but that question was answered a few days after the results came out.
Readers must also note that in a lot of places in Asia, more than live streaming or video-sharing apps, TV still holds a big share of the audience. That means that a lot of organizations, including Aaj Tak, do not reach their full potential in terms of audience reach as many of their loyal viewers are from the television segment.
Conversely, a lot of people also do not have access to laptops, computers, or smartphones, meaning they can't go online and view live streaming services. As a result, a lot of prospective viewers are lost, although things are slowly improving as lower-income and rural households are provided with more avenues to purchase these gadgets.
Another effect of the 2024 Indian general election was the News & Politics category on YouTube saw a massive 338% rise in its Peak Viewers figures over the last ten days. There were also increases of 74% and 48% in its Hours Watched and Average Viewers numbers, respectively, during this phase.
This played a part in the Google-owned service reaching its highest PV number since April 2023 and achieving its largest-ever number of average online spectators for a month. The latter number could change come July, but that is a topic of discussion for a different time, specifically our monthly platform round-ups, whose May edition for YouTube can be read here.
Lastly, when looking at the cumulative watch time of the channels in the top ten picture above, the figure of 75.81M HW compares favorably to some of the biggest esports events held in 2024. In fact, it would finish within the top five of any such table created, behind only the tournaments of renowned disciplines like Mobile Legends: Bang Bang and League of Legends and ahead of popular games like Counter-Strike 2 and Valorant.
This is no mean feat, considering the rapid growth of competitive video gaming and the sheer number of hours and days for which some events run. Even the peak concurrent viewership number would put the election within the top ten when contrasted to esports events this year.
When all is done and dusted, 2024 will go down as a monumental year for Indian politics. With the mutual reliance that the nation's population and YouTube have on each other, perhaps it will also be remembered for the way the general election affected the platform's viewership dynamics, even if it was for just a few weeks.
